Wednesday, July 22, 2009

RIP Harve Presnell. The actor/singer died of cancer at 75. I remember his great singing voice in the 2 movies he made as a young man (he was mostly on the stage) and being glad when he made a comeback as a character actor in 1996.

They've started to rebuild Hobbiton (follow link for pics) in preparation for filming The Hobbit, even though they haven't finalized the script yet. There were extensive rumors (prompted by comments from Guillermo del Toro) that the casting of Bilbo was down to 4 finalists (speculated as including David Tennant, Daniel Radcliffe, and James McAvoy) with a choice to be announced at Comic Con this weekend, but Peter Jackson has denied the timing of the announcement.

Monday, July 20, 2009

RIP Walter Cronkite. The "most trusted man" in television journalism died on Friday at 92. It seems sad that he died during the anniversary of a news event that left him "speechless". Sources: CBS News, Space.com, CNet

The Emmy Award nominations were announced this morning. There were an amazing number of nominations for shows I wouldn't watch if you paid me to, but there were some good bits too. Highlights to me: How I Met Your Mother up for Best Comedy, Jim Parsons (Sheldon on Big Bang Theory) up for Lead Actor in a Comedy, Neil Patrick Harris for Supporting Actor in a Comedy, and Kristin Chenoweth for Supporting Actress in a Comedy. (Other than Lost and House, they pretty much ignored every drama I watch.)* Complete list of all nominees* NYT Arts Beat listing of the top categories

Lou Anders is asking for book suggestions on fantasy books every library should have (specifically the non-obvious ones). I'm not sure if I'll add to the list or just let the idea of which I would pick percolate in my brain, but it is interesting to look at the comment thread to see what other people have suggested. Some I've enjoyed, some have been in my TBR pile for ages, and some I may need to look for. See more at Lou Anders' blog or the SF Signal post that led me to it.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Tim Minear will be working on a new version of Alien Nation for SyFy. Good news: it isn't Fox (where every show he's worked on has been killed early). Bad news: it's a reboot of a story I didn't think needed a reboot when I'd rather see what original stuff he could do.

Fox is pushing back the premiere of Dollhouse season 2 one week to make room for an encore of a Glee episode. Not an auspicious beginning. Also Dollhouse related, tvshowsondvd has a video of Joss Whedon inviting people to his Comic Con panel on Dollhouse and showing a clip of the unaired episode he'll show there.

Another rule change for the Oscars. Best Song nominees will now get a score from 6 to 10, and no award will be given if they all don't get at least 8.25. So, unless all the nominees are considered to be "worthy", nobody wins.